Great movie, horrible music!

Roger Ebert once said "Has there ever been a film where the music more perfectly suited the action than in Carol Reed's The Third Man?" I agree with his opinion, which bears far more merit than the OP.

My vote history: http://us.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=9354248

The zither music fits the intended mood of the film -- which is leaning toward the absurd.

Sure, the film has all of the trappings on a tense noir post-war drama, but part of the film's brilliance is that it was NOT those things (at least not for the most part) -- it only looked like that. People who expect this film to be a classic-style noir drama are either disappointed when it isn't, or (more frequently) totally miss the fact that it isn't.

If they miss that fact, and saw the film was supposed to be a noir drama, then they missed the best aspects of it,and probably were again disappointed.

The film's quirkiness is not only embodied by the seemingly out-of-place zither music, but also by the main characters, who seem to have the opposite personalities than they are "supposed" to have (if this was truly a dark noir drama)...

...Holly Martins is "supposed" to be the heroic protagonist, but he is actually a sand-sack loser of a man, and a lot more dim-witted than he thinks he is. Harry lime as the "antagonist villain" is actually a charming and likable chap. He's the kind of guy you'd like to have a few beers with and smoke cigars with -- well, except for the fact that he (for all intents and purposes) murdered innocent sick children with his watered-down penicillin.

Sad-sack Holly went through the film with a swagger as if he was one of the heroes from the poorly-written dime store novels that he writes, but that was all a false swagger, which came to a head when he fully assumed he was "going to get the girl", probably like the heroes in his books, but was ever-so-wrong about that.

The music fits that mood very, very well.

Bad Form, mate!!

Totally agree with you, mate. Just watched the film and this stupid ukulele or something almost ruined it for me. It felt like I was at Bikini Bottom for God's sake.

I loved the music. It's so distinctive and quirky.

A bird sings and the mountain's silence deepens.

Music is very subjective and all genres have their devotees and people who dislike particular ones. Personally I think the music in the Third Man works very well and I quite like it. I'm not sure that I would listen to it on its own without the movie playing like I can with other movie themes though.

Music was terrific to me. Loved it!
It's a matter of taste, but generally people really enjoyed this score and it's one of the reasons this film is considered one of the best ever made. From Wiki:

"The Third Man Theme" topped the international music charts in 1950, bringing the then-unknown performer international fame.

The zither music in this film has the insidious quality of being jolly until it is evil.

And it's as identifiable to Austria and Bavaria as the steel guitar is to Nashville.

It's use serves purpose and is brilliant in conveying the forced joviality of Viennese charm that was hiding deception and fear in post-war Austria.

The frenetic turns that the music takes, sound as wound up as the undercurrent of taut suspense in the film.

You don't have to start buying zither music, but as the film goes, go with it and appreciate what it's doing and how well it fits.